Gary Vaynerchuk slams Apple for 'Planet of the Apps' marketing flop

As Apple prepares its big move into original content, a star of "Planet of the Apps," one of its first generation of shows, has spoken out about how the company handled the marketing of that series.

"I was on an Apple show 'Planet of the Apps' -- Gwyneth, Will, Jessica Alba, me and Apple didn't use me or [Vayner Media, Vaynerchuk's digital marketing company] to do the marketing, and did everything wrong." said Gary Vaynerchuk on his podcast in an interview with Food Network hosts. "Look, I grew up in the wine business, so Food Network is probably my Apple. But I don't trust anybody in marketing, today."

Vaynerchuk, an entrepreneur known for his work in the wine industry as well as digital marketing, talked about the Apple experience on an episode of his YouTube show "Ask Gary Vee." Vaynerchuk was one of the judges on "Planet of the Apps," along with actresses Jessica Alba and Gwyneth Paltrow and musician Will.i.am.

Vaynerchuk went on to note that while he takes complete control over marketing on his own projects, he often refrained from comment while dealing with the Apple during the production of the show.

"You'd be blown away by the way I handled myself in the Apple marketing meeting. My cheeks were bleeding profusely out of every meeting because I was biting them, my tongue fell completely out of my mouth," added Vaynerchuk. "You're also there with Jimmy Iovine, and he's like I got it, I got it,' and I knew he wasn't in the trenches, I know Jimmy's no dope, clearly, but I was like, F-- this.'"

Apple's ongoing push to create its own original TV series is sometimes referred to as the company's first push into original content. But that's not quite true- before the announcement about the upcoming series starring the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Jason Momoa, Apple actually debuted its original content last year with "Planet of the Apps," a "Shark Tank"-like reality series that was distributed through Apple Music and iTunes.

The series aired ten episodes in the summer of 2017, and while there's been no official word about a cancellation, the series is not considered much of a success.

Vaynerchuk did not go into detail about what exactly the dispute with Apple entailed. It is clear, though, that the show failed to make much of a dent, and that Apple failed to take advantage of the star power that came with three entertainment industry celebrities who have credibility in the business world, as well as a marketing guru in Vaynerchuk.

Still, there's not much reason to think this bodes ill for Apple's future content plans. The company has clearly bought into becoming a content player going forward in a way that it hadn't in 2017, and will clearly be bringing its full marketing power to bear on its upcoming shows in a way it didn't for "Planet of the Apps."

“My cheeks were bleeding profusely out of every meeting because I was biting them, my tongue fell completely out of my mouth,"

This is an all to familiar scenario. In my last corporate job, we would have upper level management drop but a meeting (late), talk for minutes about something they know nothing about, then leave. Welcome to the wonderful world of corporate America. While I love Apple, they should forego personal feelings and egos and put together the right teams for the job.

It was a dud as a concept, no surprise it went nowhere. How it got approved is the question that needs answering. No doubt Apple realized its limited potential along the way and decided not to throw good money after bad with a big marketing push. They likely decided, let’s finish out our obligations to those we’ve engaged with and move on.

I was surprised when they announced Planet of the Apps that Vaynerchuk was involved. He's still around? I thought he faded into obscurity around 2010, when people stopped asking him on their podcasts. He's basically a self-promotion machine who leveraged his wine business into an online marketing consultancy, and just seemed to disappear at some point.

To me, he never seemed to have anything particularly exciting to say, but he did manage to build his personal brand by getting on to YouTube and podcasting, well not early on, but during the first really big wave. Everyone had him on their show for a while there, and then he seemed to vanish, apart from occasional references to his amusing sounding name.

Maybe he's right, and the problem was Apple's failure to market the show properly, but from what I've heard, it just didn't sound particularly interesting as a program. Then again, I've never been particularly interested in Dragons' Den, either.

Maybe he should maybe he should look in the mirror to see where the blame lies. He is biting the hand that feeds him. Apple should cancel the show and fire him.

The show should've been canceled because it's no good. That's not Gary's fault.

It might not be his fault, but if that's the case, then it isn't Apple's fault either, and Gary going on about it reflects badly on him. As I said above, I don't know why it failed, but I would say it was lack of an interesting premise.

I think Apple's mistake in the video content realm was all the years they spent trying to negotiate a deal with Big Content that would make AppleTV a kind of iTunes for video. They thought they could replicate the kinds of deals they made with the music labels but that didn't work.

The reason it worked with music was the success of Napster. The music guys were terrified. The video guys, though, were not in nearly as weak a position. I think they just led Apple on, making it seem that a deal was right around the corner, as a way to freeze Apple out of doing anything to really compete

I still don't think Apple has the right strategy in this space. I suspect they will end up wasting a lot of money to develop mediocre shows.

I think Apple's mistake in the video content realm was all the years they spent trying to negotiate a deal with Big Content that would make AppleTV a kind of iTunes for video. They thought they could replicate the kinds of deals they made with the music labels but that didn't work.

The reason it worked with music was the success of Napster. The music guys were terrified. The video guys, though, were not in nearly as weak a position. I think they just led Apple on, making it seem that a deal was right around the corner, as a way to freeze Apple out of doing anything to really compete

I still don't think Apple has the right strategy in this space. I suspect they will end up wasting a lot of money to develop mediocre shows.

Agree 100%. Seems like a complete waste of time, attention, and resources. Especially given how much phenomenal stuff is out there now.

It was a dud as a concept, no surprise it went nowhere. How it got approved is the question that needs answering. No doubt Apple realized its limited potential along the way and decided not to throw good money after bad with a big marketing push. They likely decided, let’s finish out our obligations to those we’ve engaged with and move on.

As Apple continue to diversify, they're widening their area of incompetence. This is standard corporate America and Wall Street pathological culture. Self harm comes as part of the blind push for perpetual profit increase.

This show is a product highlighting a division and part of Apple that is suffering a sever identity crisis. Apple has gone from a computer to consumer company but what does all that encompass? Apple is searching for that answer......